Joining today's show are Mike Barnicle, Nicolle Wallace, John Heilemann, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Kasie Hunt, Bret Stephens, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, Chris Cilizza, Jonathan Capehart, Hallie Jackson, Chuck Todd, Ben Ginsberg, Jeff Weaver, Ben Anderson, Bianna Golodryga, Radhika Jones, Sara Eisen and in Taiji, Japana, 4 Pacific white sided Dolphins have been taken captive. Hunters have finished for the day. 2016-28-01 2:53pm #tweet4dolphins
It's On: Trump Releases Details About Rival Event To Fox News Debate.
The event is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. local time, the same time Fox's primetime debate is scheduled to start.
After the event was announced, Trump took to Twitter to blame his boycott on the "taunting" statement released by the network on Tuesday, which ribbed the billionaire about his threat to skip the debate if he was treated "unfairly."
Donald J. Trump
It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.
Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, told the Washington Post the campaign has invited "all major networks" to carry the event live.
Trump had earlier said he would host an event in Iowa to raise money for veterans in lieu of attending the debate.
Trump refuses to reconsider debate in fiery Fox interview.
He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.
Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first GOP debate in August.
“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.
Trump is instead holding a rally in Des Moines at the same time as the Republican debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans.
In the contentious interview with O’Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor’s attempts to convince him that he’s making a grave error by skipping the debate.
“I believe personally that you want to improve the country,” O’Reilly said. “By doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others … that is true.
“You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have sixty seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.”
But O’Reilly’s pitch fell flat with Trump. The GOP front-runner dug in his heels, insisting he intended to retaliate against the network by depriving them of ratings.
“Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate,” Trump said. “Now they’re going to make much less.”
O’Reilly said he was merely trying to convince Trump that his approach “is wrong because it’s better for people to see you in the debate format.”
He gave the example from 2012, when former Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked an embarrassing question by a CNN debate moderator at a South Carolina debate about allegations he had an open marriage.
Gingrich shut the moderator down and went on to win South Carolina, O’Reilly noted.
“That’s the kind of guy you are,” O’Reilly said. “You stick it to them and let them have it.”
Responded Trump: “Newt is a friend of mine and I thought it was an unfair question. But equally unfair was the question Megyn Kelly asked me.”
O’Reilly then sought to appeal to Trump’s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he’s a Christian, even if he doesn’t attend church all that often, and that the Bible says to “turn the other cheek.”
Trump shot back, saying he’s a regular church-goer, and that the Bible also says “an eye for an eye.”
“You could look at it that way too,” Trump said.
O’Reilly accused Trump of being “petty,” and said he was allowing things that are out of his control to have outsized influence over his decision-making process.
“I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said. “In this case I was being taken advantage of by Fox. I don’t like that. Now when I’m representing the country, if I win, I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of. … It’s a personality trait but I don’t think it’s a bad personality trait.”
O’Reilly ended the interview asking Trump to just at least consider showing up Thursday night. Trump said the two had agreed beforehand that O’Reilly not ask that question.
“I told you up front don’t ask me that question because it’s an embarrassing question for you and I don’t want to embarrass you,” he said.
Iowa Poll: 'Trump Takes Caucus Lead'. A new Iowa poll finds Donald Trump with a strong seven point lead, less than one week from caucus day. Ted Cruz is in second and Marco Rubio is in third, the poll finds.
"In a poll conducted largely before the announcement that he would not participate in the final debate prior to Iowa’s caucuses, Donald Trump leads Ted Cruz in the first contest of 2016. The latest Monmouth University Poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers finds that turnout will be a significant factor in determining who emerges victorious," the poll from Monmouth University finds.
"Donald Trump earns 30% support and Ted Cruz has 23% support when likely caucusgoers are asked who they will caucus for on February 1st. Marco Rubio (16%) and Ben Carson (10%) are in the field's second tier. The remaining candidates earn less than 5% support each, including Jeb Bush (4%), Mike Huckabee (3%), John Kasich (3%), Rand Paul (3%), Chris Christie (2%), and Carly Fiorina (2%).
"Cruz's support has basically held steady since his 24% showing in December when he led the field, while Trump's support has grown substantially from 19% last month. The current result is Trump's best showing in any Monmouth Iowa caucus poll since he entered the race. Rubio is off by one point and Carson is down by 3 points since last month's poll.
"Cruz does particularly well among registered Republicans who have a history of voting in state primaries. He leads Trump by a 28% to 23% margin among this group of regular party voters, with Rubio at 14% and Carson at 13%. Trump does better among those who do not have a history of taking part in party elections. This includes 44% support among registered Republicans who are general election voters and 50% support among registered independents who say they will attend their local Republican caucus on Monday. Rubio comes in second among non-primary GOP voters at 20% with Cruz at 13%. Rubio also places second among independents who will caucus at 14% with Cruz at 10%."
Oregon occupation leader Bundy urges remaining protesters to go home. The leader of a month-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Wednesday urged remaining protesters to leave the site and go home, a day after his arrest and the death of a supporter.
Ammon Bundy, who was taken into custody with several members of his group at a traffic stop along Highway 395, north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon, urged federal authorities to let his comrades leave the compound without being prosecuted.
"To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down... Please go home," Bundy said in a statement read by his attorney, Michael Arnold, following a court hearing.
A total of eight occupiers had left the compound by late on Wednesday and three were arrested, including Jason Patrick, who had been with Bundy's group in Oregon since the beginning and was acting as a spokesman for the holdouts, the FBI said in a statement.
It was unclear how many people remained inside the refuge.
Brandon Curtiss, a member of the Pacific Patriots Network, which has been acting as an intermediary between law enforcement and Bundy's supporters, said the FBI informed him of Patrick's arrest.
The three taken into custody face a federal charge of felony conspiracy to impede federal officers.
Patrick told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday that some protesters were leaving, but rejected the word "surrender."
"I don’t know what surrendering looks like," he said. "They’re walking through the checkpoint and going home. That's what I've heard unless I'm being lied to."
Citing the investigation, authorities declined to say what led to the fatal shooting of a member of Bundy's group, identified by activists as Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was wounded during the traffic stop.
The protesters were each charged in U.S. District Court in Portland with conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties.
The defendants were ordered held without bail until a detention hearing set for Friday.
The Malheur takeover, which started on Jan. 2 with at least a dozen armed men, was a flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over federal control of millions of acres in the West.
'THIS CAN'T HAPPEN IN AMERICA'
At a news conference earlier in the day, state and federal authorities pleaded with the remaining occupiers to quit their protest, saying they were free to leave.
"Let me be clear: It is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers of the refuge that have led us to where we are today," said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Portland. "They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully and as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences."
Federal officials say they had probable cause to arrest Finicum, who told NBC News earlier this month that he would rather die than be detained.
At the same news conference, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, his voice breaking, said, "I'm disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly. Multiple law enforcement agencies put a lot of work into putting together the best tactical plan they could, to take these guys down peacefully.
"This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America and it can't happen in Harney County," Ward added.
Reactions to the takeover from residents in Burns, about 30 miles (48 km) from the refuge, have included sympathy for the imprisoned local ranchers whose plight began the protest, to distrust of the federal government, and dismay at the armed occupation by individuals seen as outsiders.
Many residents said an armed protest was taking legitimate grievances too far, and leaders of a Native American tribe have urged the occupiers to leave, saying they were scaring the community and that the protesters’ ignorance of the region’s real history was offensive. Additional reporting by Peter Henderson, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Daniel Wallis in Denver, Dan Cook in Portland, Jonathan Allen, Melissa Fares, Amy Tennery and Ed Tobin in New York and Andy Sullivan and Julia Edwards in Washington Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Trott and Clarence Fernandez.
June Scobee Rodgers -- widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group -- is passing the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham.
Fulgham -- not Rodgers -- will be on the stage for Thursday morning's ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
And making a rare appearance in the audience will be schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe's son, Scott, with his own family.
"It's going to be wonderful to watch the pages turn," Rodgers said earlier this week. The second generation "can now speak for our family and speak for the nation," she said, adding that she's looking forward to these grown astronauts' children "sharing their stories, their beliefs and their leadership."
For the seven astronauts' loved ones, Jan. 28, 1986, remains fresh in their minds.
Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in Concord, New Hampshire, still declines interviews about his late wife Christa, who was poised to become the first schoolteacher in space. But he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting."
McAuliffe said he's pleased "Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students." She would be proud, he noted, of the Challenger Learning Centers.
McAuliffe is presiding over a trial this week in Concord, and so son Scott will represent the family, part of the next-generation shift. Scott and his sister are now in their 30s. The McAuliffes normally do not take part in these NASA memorials, so Scott's presence is especially noteworthy.
Along with the other Challenger families, Rodgers established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education just three months after the shuttle disintegrated in the Florida sky. Unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster doomed the ship.
Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built.
"They're not just a field trip for kids. They're actually lessons learned," said Rodgers, an educator who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "That's why they've lasted."
McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from Idaho, rocketed into orbit in 2007 aboard Endeavour as a fully trained astronaut. Morgan was invited to speak Thursday at Rodgers' request.
Besides Dick Scobee and Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger dead include pilot Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis.
Seven more shuttle astronauts died Feb. 1, 2003, aboard Columbia; that commander's widow, Evelyn Husband Thompson, will attend Thursday's ceremony.
The event will honor the Columbia Seven as well, along with the three Apollo 1 astronauts killed during a launch pad test on Jan. 27, 1967. NASA also plans observances at Arlington National cemetery, Johnson Space Center in Houston and elsewhere.
At Kennedy, the Scobee contingent will number 12, including June's son Richard, a major general in the Air Force, and a 16-year-old granddaughter.
Dick Scobee was 46 years old when he died aboard Challenger barely a minute into the flight. Both his children are now in their 50s.
"For so many people, 30 years, it's definitely history. It's in the history books," Rodgers said. For the family, "it's like it's just happened, which in a way keeps Dick Scobee young in our hearts, and the joy and excitement he had for flying."
'What has she done that we're bragging about? How has she led?': Susan Sarandon backs Bernie for president instead of Hillary over Clinton's vote for the Iraq War - 'she failed that test'. Actress and progressive activist Susan Sarandon lent her star power to Bernie Sanders at an Iowa rally this evening, passing over Hillary Clinton a second time for the nation's top job.
A decider for Sarandon, who has known Sanders for more than two decades, was Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War as a New York senator, a military conflict that Sanders did not support.
'That's where Hillary Clinton lost me,' she told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview, 'because there was plenty of information that even I had that said there was a real problem with the logic involved.'
Clinton went on to be secretary of state and has more experience in the foreign policy realm than Sanders, who has has focused his legislative career on fighting for economic justice.
'But what is experience without judgement,' Sarandon said tonight after a Sanders rally in northern Iowa. 'She's had a job but what has she done that we're bragging about. How has she led?'
A decider for Sarandon was Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War - which Sanders was against. 'That's where Hillary Clinton lost me,' she told DailyMail.com tonight
Clinton, seen here today in Des Moines, Iowa, is a former secretary of state and has more experience in the foreign policy realm than Sanders. 'But what is experience without judgement,' Sarandon said tonight. 'She's had a job but what has she done that we're bragging about. How has she led?'
Continuing the actress said of Clinton, once the nation's top diplomat, 'She's had that job, and he's had a job, too, and she went overseas, but what I'm saying is the biggest foreign decision that had to be made in terms of foreign policy was whether or not to go into Iraq and go into war, and she failed that test.'
'I'm sorry, but for me, you can't get a bigger decision than that and we've been paying the price ever since. And I think she has to be held accountable for that.'
In 2008 Sarandon got behind Barack Obama at a critical time in the primary. Now, she's hitting the trail for Sanders a week before Iowans cast their ballots - the start of the 2016 election.
'I've come here because for me gender is not what's important. Issues are what's important,' she said as she introduced the U.S. senator at tonight's event in Music Man Square in Mason City Iowa.
Her support for Sanders and the visit to Iowa on his behalf is more than just a response to Clinton's war record.
Sarandon said her endorsement was an affront to the 'machine' which is 'run by Wall Street, by big pharm, by Monsanto and that it was an ode to a man she believes is 'consistent...principled' and 'incredibly brave.'
'I want a candidate who has the courage to stand and do the right thing when it was not popular,' she said ahead of his speech.
In her exclusive with DailyMail.com Sarandon expounded on that point and said that Sanders is 'untainted.'
'If you want to know how people are gonna react and where they really stand, you have to look at who's giving them their money.'
In her praise of Sanders, Sarandon said, 'The fact that he has managed to consistently be on the right side of every issue the correct side of every issue that reflects my concerns, and he has done it without being connected to Wall Street, big pharm, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs.'
'I don't know of anyone who has managed to have a career that's been so effective without owing their soul to one of the major financial and corporate institutions,' she said of the 25-year veteran of Congress.
Reflecting on the 2016 election she said, 'I think this is the last chance we're going to get to see somebody that can have that kind of change.'
'When you have the other candidate taking money from Goldman Sachs, speaking to Goldman Sachs, getting a lot of money from Monsanto, I think it's really naive to believe that that's not going to have some kind of influence over policy,' Sarandon said, referring to Clinton.
During the rally she also made a not-so-thinly veiled jab at Clinton over gay marriage.
'It's one thing to be for gay rights and gay marriage once everybody else is for it. That's not difficult,' Sarandon stated.
Clinton did not say she was for it until 2013.That was after President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden threw their support behind it in 2012. Sanders put his position on record in 2009.
Sarandon is a longtime supporter of gay rights. In 2003 she appeared in a commercial promoting the cause.
Clinton's husband signed laws implementing bans on benefits for same-sex spouses and military service of homosexual individuals.
She now says her husband signed the Defense of Marriage Act to prevent the Republican Congress from banning gay marriage altogether and has been embraced by national figures in the gay rights movement, including the Human Rights Campaign.
Sarandon, who gave to Clinton in 2000 when she was running for Senate but not since, according to donation tracking website Little Sis, indicated tonight that it wasn't enough.
Clinton is a johnny-come-lately on a gay marriage, she suggested.
'Yeah, she was,' the movie star said after DailyMail.com asked if that was a reasonable interpretation of her rally remarks. 'There's a number of issues where she has come around but she very clearly equivocated or was not there in the beginning.
'She was not, and that's a matter of record, and yes she has come around,' Sarandon said, 'but my point is, it's great that she came around, but wouldn't it be great to be a leader instead of a follower, especially if you're going to hold the highest office in the land?'
Sarandon further pushed back on the argument made by Clinton and others that Sanders policy ideas are 'too difficult' to implement.
'You know, change is hard, so to say that you cant go for a decent minimum because you can't get it because it's too difficult and to have that called pragmatic is not pragmatic,' she told 1,100 of his supporters tonight. 'That's just cynicism. That's giving up before you've even tried.'
Ted Cruz Super PACs Offer $1.5 Million for Trump Debate. The super PACs supporting Ted Cruz are offering $1.5 million to veterans charities if Donald Trump agrees to debate Cruz one-on-one before the Iowa caucus, heightening the stakes around Cruz's proposal just five days before the Iowa caucus.
"Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans," the donors backing the pro-Cruz "Keep the Promise" entities said in a joint statement on Wednesday night.
Cruz laid out a specific proposal to Trump at a rally in West Des Moines on Wednesday evening, telling the crowd his campaign has reserved a venue in Sioux City, Iowa, for 8 p.m. local time on Saturday night. He said 800 seats are available for Iowans — and Trump can choose to do what he likes with half of them.
"We have the venue. We have the time," Cruz told the receptive, chuckling crowd. "All we're missing is the candidate."
Trump has a rally scheduled Saturday night in Davenport, Iowa, which is on the eastern border of the state. Sioux City, where Cruz is proposing, is on the western edge of the state.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump tweeted his response to Cruz's offer: "Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada?"
Cruz told NBC News on Wednesday night that candidates have to "show the respect and the humility to submit yourself to the voters and answer their questions."
Meanwhile, candidate Carly Fiorina looked to up the ante late Wednesday night, offering to donate $1.5 million to veterans causes to debate Trump and Cruz on Saturday night or $2 million to debate just Trump on Thursday night at Drake University here in Des Moines.
Cruz first chided Trump after his rival bowed out of Thursday night's GOP debate in Des Moines. Trump is opposed to Fox News' decision to use host Megyn Kelly, who he has called not "professional at all," after testy exchanges between the two in the first Republican debate in August.
"I promise you Putin is a lot scarier than Megyn Kelly," Cruz said on Tuesday. "I'd like to hear Donald explain to the American people and to the people of Iowa how he is prepared to be commander-in-chief if he's terrified by a television host."
The super PACs said in their statement that the debate must last an hour and the pair may choose the moderators to their liking.
Cruz has already proposed that radio and TV hosts Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh as moderators, or open the floor to the audience to ask questions.
Hillary Clinton Doing Finance Industry Fundraiser Just Before Iowa. Despite being dogged with questions about her ties to Wall Street, Hillary Clinton will take a detour from the campaign trail in Iowa to do a finance industry fundraiser on Wednesday.
Clinton will appear in Philadelphia at a “gala” fundraiser hosted by executives at Franklin Square Capital Partners, a $17 billion investment fund. Rocker Bon Jovi will reportedly play an acoustic set for “friends” who pledge $1,000 and hosts who bundle up to $27,000. (Giancarlo Stefanoni, a Clinton campaign staffer, confirmed that as of Tuesday afternoon, the event is still on.)
The Philadelphia Inquirer notes that “Franklin Square employs Ivy League-educated money managers and salespeople with experience at big Wall Street firms — plus four personal trainers and a dietitian to keep staff happy and productive amid the gym, yoga and nap rooms, Sol LeWitt art installations, and fancy cafeteria.”
Clinton was then scheduled to head to New York City on Thursday, where she was to speak at a lunchtime “Conversations With Hillary” fundraiser, now set for next month. This one is co-hosted by Matt Mallow, a senior managing director and general counsel at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm. As we’ve reported before, having a conversation with Hillary is not cheap.
BlackRock’s ties to Clinton go particularly deep: Cheryl Mills, one of Clinton’s closest advisers at the State Department, sits on BlackRock’s board, and perhaps not surprisingly, Clinton’s plans for the industry align with the company’s financial strategy.
As David Dayen wrote for The Intercept, the company “buys and holds most of its investments, meaning that any policy punishing short-term capital gains and rewarding longer-term strategies would personally benefit the firm. … You could see Clinton’s proposals [to limit high-frequency trading] as clearing much of the competition to BlackRock’s asset management business.”
While Clinton certainly has an interest in raising money for her campaign, the organizers are banking on less government regulations in the future.
One of Franklin Square Capital’s investment funds, the FS Energy & Power Fund, is heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, including offshore oil drilling and fracking. A disclosure posted by the company cautions that “changes to laws and increased regulation or restrictions on the use of hydraulic fracturing may adversely impact” the fund’s performance. As secretary of state, Clinton worked to spread fracking around the world.
Hillary Clinton campaign has postponed a New York City fundraiser scheduled for Thursday until Feb. 16, according to Marisa Faltelson, New York finance co-director at Hillary for America.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges is on the show now. US requests NATO surveillance aircraft in fight against Islamic State. The U.S. has requested NATO provide surveillance aircraft for the campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, NATO’s top official said Thursday.
If approved by member states, the deployment of NATO Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft would mark the first direct involvement of the 28-nation alliance in the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State. So far, NATO has provided support around the edges with assorted training missions in places such as Jordan and plans to train Iraqi officers.
“We’ve got a request from the U.S. to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Currently, NATO has AWACS positioned in Turkey to help monitor Turkish airspace along the NATO ally’s border with Syria. Turkey requested support after an incident late last year involving a Russian jet that Turkey said violated its airspace and was subsequently shot down.
Now, allies must decide whether to expand the mission into Syria and Iraq, a source of controversy for some member states such as Germany, whose troops are part of the AWACS effort in Turkey.
Stoltenberg offered no time line for a final decision on deploying the AWACS.
The prospect of NATO involvement in the air campaign against Islamic State militants is one of many issues confronting the alliance, which faces the “biggest security challenges in a generation,” Stoltenberg said.
Responding to such challenges requires resources, and Stoltenberg repeated a long-running refrain that allies must invest more in defense to meet those challenges. In 2015, allies in Europe largely ended a long trend of cuts in defense spending, which Stoltenberg said is a sign of progress. In all, 16 countries increased spending last year with five reaching the NATO benchmark for spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense measures. Overall, cuts in spending have “practically stopped,” he said.
“This is a first step in the right direction,” Stoltenberg said.
The U.S. still accounts for 72 percent of expenditures. However, some allies such as Italy continue to cut, with Rome reducing investment by about 12 percent.
Meanwhile, NATO is planning to increase operations in eastern Europe, where alliance forces have played a more prominent role since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine nearly two years ago, Stoltenberg said. With increased Russian activity near NATO’s borders, alliance jets were scrambled more than 400 times in 2015 to intercept Russian jets.
Leaders are expected to adopt decisions on how to increase NATO’s posture in both the east and south at a summit in Warsaw in July. They could involve everything from increased troop numbers to prepositioned equipment and infrastructure to facilitate the flow of forces, Stoltenberg said.
Still, whatever steps are taken, they will pale compared to the days of the Cold War.
“There is no way we will go back to that threat posture,” Stoltenberg said. “But we are talking about some increase in the military presence.”
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